Epps Expecting Sunday Improvements At Brands Hatch

Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship newcomer Michael Epps said that Team HARD have more pace in their pocket for Sunday, after a number of issues hampered his maiden qualifying session at Brands Hatch.

Epps ended his maiden BTCC qualifying session 1.2s adrift of pole-sitter, Tom Ingram, set to start 26th on the grid for the season-opening race at the Kent circuit.

The Toyota Avensis driver qualified third-highest of the six rookies in the field, saying afterwards that the interloping shower dampened his chances of improving.

“I was trying to get the tyres in at the start and it was a bit busy moving out the way of the fast guys, so we missed the best of the track conditions”, said Epps.

“I feel there was a 1:48 in the car today, but when we went out at the end after sorting a power steering issue, the track wasn’t there with the rain.”

Reliability remained a concern initially for Epps, as Saturday’s second practice session was in fact the first time he ventured out on track in the BTCC Avensis.

“There’s loads of little hiccups in the car that we need to iron out, but considering we’ve only had FP2 in the car, that’s to be expected”, he added.

“It’s all about progress for us this weekend and we feel we’ve got a good chance of having strong race pace, so we’ll try and close onto Jake [Hill]’s pace and move up the order over the three races.”